Productivity for Artists: Organizing Yourself for Success
Brooke Glaser · Illustrator
A working illustrator hands over her actual planning system, not vague motivational talk, though nothing here is genuinely new to productivity readers.
Brooke Glaser teaches this course the way she says she actually works: a personal system built from trial and error rather than a theory-first framework. That grounding is the course's real asset. Instead of abstract principles, she walks through her own annual sketch, monthly goal lists in Apple Notes, weekly breakdowns, and a daily sticky-note to-do list with a specific line-through-and-arrow notation for finished, deferred, and half-done tasks. It reads less like a lecture and more like someone showing you her actual notebook.
The planning system
The strongest stretch of the course is the four-tier planning cascade in the early lessons. Glaser explains why she caps her forward planning at three or four goals per stretch, why she refuses to let a project run longer than three or four months before reassessing, and why she deliberately under-schedules each week to leave room for disruption. The specific tactical detail that separates this from generic advice is her project-based to-do list structure: one list per client or income stream, with reusable templates for repeat workflows (she names her print-development sequence step by step) and recurring tasks that auto-reschedule after completion. Her one hard rule, never use your email inbox as a to-do list, is a small point delivered with enough reasoning behind it to actually stick.
Motivation and self-sabotage
The middle section pivots from systems to psychology, and this is where the course earns its rating. Glaser imports Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies framework wholesale, walking through upholders, questioners, obligers, and rebels, and matching each to a different accountability strategy. It is the single most transferable idea in the class because it explains why a productivity hack that works for one person (strict scheduling, for instance) can actively backfire for another. The workaholism lesson is similarly specific: a hard end-of-workday email cutoff, a two-day weekend rule because the first day off is rarely enough to actually unwind, and a two-minute end-of-day review to counteract the brain's habit of forgetting what got done.
The procrastination and perfectionism lesson introduces the five-minute rule (commit to five minutes, not the whole task) and a reframing trick, swapping "I have to" for "I get to," that is simple enough to actually use mid-task. The lesson on quitting versus persisting is unexpectedly sharp, applying the sunk cost fallacy directly to creative work and client relationships rather than just money.
Where it falls short
None of this is original. The Four Tendencies material is lifted directly from Rubin's book, the Pomodoro Technique is decades old, and the distraction-elimination advice (delete the apps, leave the phone in another room) will be familiar to anyone who has read a productivity book in the last ten years. Glaser is upfront that she is compiling what worked for her rather than inventing anything new, which is honest but also means the course adds little beyond curation and personal anecdote. The pacing sags in the middle third, where the motivation and distraction lessons repeat the same points about willpower and environment design from slightly different angles. Artists who have already read Atomic Habits or Rubin's own book will find much of this redundant. For someone who has never systematized their planning at all, though, the specificity of Glaser's own workflow makes it a genuinely usable starting template.
The standout
The Four Tendencies breakdown, borrowed from Gretchen Rubin, gives a genuinely useful diagnostic for why generic productivity advice fails and what to try instead based on whether you respond to inner or outer expectations.
What you will learn
- Build a four-tier planning cascade: annual sketch, monthly goal list, weekly priorities, daily to-do list, with a review loop at each level
- Set up project-based to-do lists (one per client, income stream, or goal) instead of one master list, using templates for repeating workflows
- Identify your motivation type using Gretchen Rubin's Four Tendencies (upholder, questioner, obliger, rebel) and match accountability strategies to it
- Use the Pomodoro Technique and scheduled downtime to avoid workaholic burnout, including hard email cutoff times
- Apply the five-minute rule and language reframing ("I get to" vs "I have to") to break procrastination and perfectionism
- Curate a physical workspace and eliminate access to distractions rather than relying on willpower alone
Best for: Freelance and self-employed creatives juggling a day job or scattered projects who want a concrete organizational system rather than inspiration.
Skip it if: Anyone who has already read standard productivity books like Atomic Habits or The Four Tendencies, or artists working inside a structured studio or agency with existing project management tools.